The John Batchelor Show

Friday 4 December 2020

Air Date: 
December 04, 2020

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
 
Hour One
Friday 4 December  2020 / Hour 1, Block A: Dan Henninger: @DanHenninger, @WSJOpinion; editorial board and Wonder Land column; in re:  Will America follow Biden’s masks?
Friday 4 December  2020 / Hour 1, Block B: Jeff Bliss: @JCBliss, #PacificWatch, in re:  Gavin Newson had a more complex dinner than we knew, and is now fighting off condemnations  on multiple fronts.  A top Sacramento lobbyist, tens of millions a year, joined at he hip with Newsom; favors marijuana. SF mayor London Breed closed down the city—and had her own hypocritical meals.  Mayor of Denver apologized tearfully for having flown to Mississippi.  Mayor of Austin also: was in Cabo San Lucas. Zelda, Sheila Jewell, closed restaurants then went out to dine. Seattle—Antifa and its occupied zone: businesses ruined, people moved out; now are in court complaining that it didn't get proper police protection
Portland, Oregon, mayor Ted Wheeler. Los Angeles: Mayor Garcetti, where BLM shows up daily, and he’s pushing a new crackdown.
Friday 4 December  2020 / Hour 1, Block C: Gene Marks, @genemarks @Guardian #SmallBusinessAmerica @Guardian, Philadelphia Inquirer, and at TheHill; in re:  Small business wants work, not handouts. Vaccine in London.  In Philadelphia, restaurants limitations; and it’s cold and rainy, so restaurateurs are giving up.  Stimulus?  The data have been unreliable over a long period; pols are making decisions  for trillions of dollars based on bad data and without the participation of citizens. Unexpectedly bad jobs report today. Hundreds of millions worldwide now fallen into extreme poverty because of the flu.  Small-bz confidence is falling like a brick.  Don't know if the vaccine will improve that.   My solution for restaurants: file for Chapter 11, take a breather, and come back into operation after the vaccines have [shifted] the situation. Some industries are doing brilliantly—pool installation, inter al.  
Macros
Small businesses don't need another stimulus — they need customers
https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/528473-small-businesses-dont-need-an...
November jobs report: US economy adds 245,000 jobs, unemployment rate falls to 6.7%
https://www.yahoo.com/now/november-2020-jobs-report-labor-market-coronav...
Construction Spending Increased 1.3% in October
https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2020/12/construction-spending-increas...
Small business confidence drops to all-time low after Biden election
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/30/small-business-confidence-hits-all-time-...
Congress seems ready to pass a bipartisan $908 billion stimulus — if Mitch McConnell says yes
https://www.vox.com/2020/12/1/21761244/senate-emergency-covid-relief-man...
Friday 4 December  2020 / Hour 1, Block D: Gene Marks, @genemarks @Guardian #SmallBusinessAmerica @Guardian, Philadelphia Inquirer, and at TheHill; in re: At-home work creates new business cycles. . . . Some fees for food delivery can be as much as 30% of the food fee.
Micro
Corporate employees working from home are creating a surge in startups
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/nov/19/small-business-startups...
Restaurants have this one trick up their sleeve to survive the COVID winter
https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/526618-restaurants-have-this-one-...
Restaurant owners may not like delivery services – but can they do without them?
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/dec/02/restaurant-owners-deliv...
This holiday season, many small business owners will give thanks to President Trump
https://amp.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/nov/30/holiday-season-small-bu...
The best protection against check washing schemes? Stop using checks
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/25/check-washing-sche...
 
Hour Two
Friday 4 December  2020 / Hour 2, Block A:  Michael E Vlahos: @JHUWorldCrisis; Johns Hopkins; in re:   powerful revolutionary wing in blue; will push hard to get it enacted, dependent on Senate. Biden has in effect retired to Capri. In California, regular people have seen their energy bills skyrocket, could have an uprising against this. Also, against the controls and shutdowns. Biden is wise to be in exile, being old. Best approach would be to rule —lead—the same way he ran: do nothing, stay hidden, appear rarely.  Doing anything could trigger the return of the civil war.   
Friday 4 December  2020 / Hour 2, Block B:  Michael E Vlahos: @JHUWorldCrisis; Johns Hopkins; in re: Germanicus (MEV) and Gaius (JB): Public doubt about the legitimacy of the vote, of the emperor.   Blue has aa smat set (red don't’); does it hear h mob?  Steely obdurateness of he blue elites/Yalies, determined to see the rabble as unworthy and deplorables—to be converted or crushed into submission. They inhabit in profusion all levels of government; are egged on to push through their agenda.  Biden may not have the energy to [hold them back].  If only in the cultural realm, that’ll be enough to [enrage] red.  The smart set is genetically hardwired to be nannies and schoolmasters of the commissars. Are we the United States of Harvard?
Friday 4 December  2020 / Hour 2, Block C:  Mary Anastasia O’Grady: @MaryAnastasiaOG; @WSJOpinion;WSJ editorial board; The Americas column; in re: Yes, some connection between Dominion and Venezuela, but not a comparable situation: Chavez had total control of the machines.  Venezuela fell toward failed statehood when the US and others did not protest the fraudulent election of 2004
Friday 4 December  2020 / Hour 2, Block D: Francis Rose,@FRoseDC,  Host of @GovMattersTV @ ABC7News & WJLA 24/7 News. Washington D.C., in re:  Schedule F, class of govt employment:  hiring and firing could be much expedited.  Rolls back the Pendleton Act of 1888; with this, civil servants can be fired for [inaction or malfeasance].  Can be hired or fired at the whim of the party in power.
 
Hour Three
Friday 4 December  2020 / Hour 3, Block A: DevinNunes, @DevinNunes, CA-22, Countdown to Socialism,in re:   The movie: Lee Smith, author of the script; out of nowhere, it became number one on Amazon. Being covered up by mainstream media; twitter shut down the account so it couldn’t be tweeted out.  Then it went on to Parler, and became enormous. Using twitter, Instagram or Facebook is not good—be shadow-banned, at best. Replacement for YouTube: Rumble.   One downfall of the Trump campaign was not making the switch to Parler, where the data won’t be stolen and the sender won't be shadow-banned.   
Friday 4 December  2020 / Hour 3, Block B:  DevinNunes, @DevinNunes, CA-22, Countdown to Socialism,in re: The GOP won the 2020 election, got all four seats in the House.  It was a battle of turn-out, and for independents.   Democrats put out a line, funneled it through the media. Pollsters were in that loop. Voter harvesting: using public-service unions going door to door days after the election to collect ballots, up to 20 days after the election.  If you mail ballots everywhere, you wind up with a third-world country such as we have in California.  The former AG Eric Holder and colleagues raised millions, but lost across the country. We can’t even get a straight story about how Biden broke his foot. Puppygate.
Friday 4 December  2020 / Hour 3, Block C:  Chris Riegel: @Scala, @STRATACACHE; in re: Retail space in America at the end of 2020. Anxiety about flu has led to slowdown and limited inventory. Walmart furloughing lots of staff.  Instead of the recovery starting in Q1, it may be mid- to late Q3.  Covid is affecting retailers: Bezos is the hammer, Walmart is the anvil. Hitting smallest businesses hardest.  Many large layoffs as firms use the flu as an excuse to diminish the expense of workers. Bookstores in Paris: French have been resistant to e commerce, surprising the chains.  LVMH and other French luxe firms understand the romance of buying in that environment, whereas in the US it's more utilitarian.   Parisian bookstores depended on tourists who now are barely there. Amazon is forcing evolution in the sector.  Many small bz now are at an existential risk: clearing up at Q1, it may work out; if Q3, you’ll see increasing resistance, and it may not be recoverable.  Stock mkt is on a sugar high; Main Street business is in dire straits. There may not be a market to return to. 
Friday 4 December  2020 / Hour 3, Block D:  Veronique de Rugy, @veroderugy, Mercatus Center, in re: Politicians are spending more of our money; they’re excited, being backward-looking, as always.  Another several trillion dollars to underwrite the unfunded mandates of California, New York, and such. Horse-trading. Republicans same as Democrats, glad to go along with this. Not much in the way of principles.  Surprising how little this compromise bill will spend n actually delivering the vaccine: 1.7% for manufacturing, testing and delivering the vaccine, It’s a joke. All the rest of the bill is unrelated to the flu.  The victims of this are school children and people at home afraid.  Incalculable damage to people’s lives with these rules. Never acknowledge all these victims collectively and do a cost-benefit analysis. In New York, a third of children will return to school.  This will happen again; economists for the most part will ignore all this experience. 
 
Hour Four
Friday 4 December  2020 / Hour 4, Block A:  Ken Croswell  @sciam, @ScienceMagazine; in re: Geminid meteor shower, strongest on the night of December 13-14.  Perseids of August are the most famous, having been the strongest, and go back 2,000 years.  Geminids were first seen in 1862, and have strengthened till today.  Most meteor showers come from a comet, but nobody knew where the Geminds came from; they’re vivid, dense.  In 1983, Fred Whipple found the source:  an asteroid, Phaethon, on an elliptical path. If you go to watch the Geminids at a dark sky, dress for 20 degrees colder than the actual temperature.
Geminids are pieces of debris from an object called 3200 Phaethon. It was long thought to be an asteroid, but is now classified as an extinct comet. Phaethon's eccentric orbit around the sun brings it well inside the orbit of Mercury every 1.4 years
Friday 4 December  2020 / Hour 4, Block B:  Ken Croswell  @sciam, @ScienceMagazine; in re:  The spectacular Geminid shower is explained by the mystery of Phaethon: its name is from the Greek Sun god, as this asteroid passes so close to the Sun, then goes out past the orbit of Mars. It gets to 1400 degrees Farenheit.  The particles are smaller than a sand grain. Hypothesis is that a catastrophe (perhaps a collision?) occurred fairly recently causing the asteroid, with a four-mile diameter, to release an enormous number of particles.  Japan will send a spacecraft in 2024 to pass the asteroid a few years later.  Asteroids and comets are the leftover building blocks of the planets.  To see the Geminids: just go to a dark sky and allow twenty minutes to accustom your eyes to the dark, after 10 PM (wherever you are) on the night of December 13.
Friday 4 December  2020 / Hour 4, Block C:  Richard Epstein: @RichardAEpstein, Chicago Law, NYU Law, Hoover Defining Ideas, in re: AG Barr appointed John Durham as Special Counsel to continue investigation in to various actors around [Russiagate]. Very unwise appt of Mueller by Comey—all buddies; Durham “has no smell” about his work. Durham has had a long time and an unlimited staff; people thought his report would be released by last June. Huge irregularities, some in FBI, in CIA, in others.  In a Democratic administration, they’d be shrewd to ignore the results.  Mueller didn’t seem clear about what his report said.  If there are indictments, they’ll be announced; if not, no report or comment at all.  Archibald Cox and Watergate.  The Jan 5, 2017, meeting which then-VP Biden and Sally Yates attended. Sally Yates may be the new AG. Hunter Biden. 
Friday 4 December  2020 / Hour 4, Block D: Richard Epstein: @RichardAEpstein, Chicago Law, NYU Law, Hoover Defining Ideas, in re:  In health care, need a comprehensive policy; the GOP lacks this and has for some time.  Republicans have done a very bad job at this; should have looked at the specific program and corrected it.   Everybody speaks of pre-existing conditions, with perhaps a waiting period, and have to stay in the program for at least a year. Also deal with pregnancy risks.  If the cost of providing exceeds the benefit . . .   Also, undo the unholy alliance from Obama: You’ll get a guaranteed market. Trump’s relaxation of rules on telemedicine was good.  Under Obama, can't get one company that specializes in cancer, or a specific malady.